My First Outward Bound Trip

​Our first outdoor trip - a walk to Doiwala in the forest, paddling across the stream - holding hands, slipping and sliding. A little patch of wet sand become a lesson in geography as we created a mound and poured water down one side. Blew air across it to emulate desert winds and dunes, crushed it together to form the Himalaya. Seeing the weaver bird nests, cooking our meal, having a cocoa kettle on the bonfire and sleeping in the verandah of the Forest Bungalow wrapped in blankets - straight out of a western movie!

﻿That was the first, many followed, as part of school mid term trips or as Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme (DEAS) trips. The point was all of school was an ‘Outward Bound’ journey, so all of those aspects of this Award scheme were already covered just by virtue of being a part of this amazing institution I got to be privileged enough to attend. So I learned and how much I benefited has manifested itself constantly through the years. ​When I look back at those years - I know what allows me to walk through life knowing I can cope with anything that comes.

How much related learning could be transferred from this knowledge came when I first took a few friends trekking. My advice on the first day to one young man whose shoes seemed loose: ‘band aid strips outer side of the big toe, the little toe and top of the heel and tie your laces tight. You can adjust the band aids at night, but if you don’t put them on now, you might not get to tonight.’ His remark to me when we stood atop the pass many days later, ‘I would never be standing here, feeling like a conquerer, but for those band aids.’ I laughingly asked - ‘moral?’ “Take care of the little details and the mountain gets climbed.”

Great growth, great well-being, self discovery and so much learning - that it was possible to share this, impart it and watch it light up another life - all this came to me when I set up the nature and rafting camp on the banks of the Ganga and saw almost every moment of everyday, just what spending time there could do for the people that came there.

I could show my children the telegraph wire of the spider's web that I had been shown as a child walking the hedgerows around school. This led me to go meet schools in Delhi and offer to take children on trips at base level prices - there had to be a give back for the abundance I received waking in my tent to the views of the Ganga flowing by and the birds calling from the trees!